Have You Read any Obituaries lately? They may inspire you.

Have you read any obituaries lately? Reading about how other people lived their lives, may inspire you to look at yours in a different way.

I have read obituaries for years and learn something from each one. They are a window into the lives of regular people, as written by those left behind. Many include a public announcement of the upcoming funeral or memorial service. Call me dated, but I still read the print newspaper every morning, and subscribe to an online edition of another city’s paper. I prefer traditional journalism to biased websites, and I know my subscriptions help keep two newspapers in business. Obituaries are a regular feature.

I have lived in the same city for fifty years, and occasionally I read about people I knew, whether it be friends of my parents, someone I knew in high school, or a former co-worker. I am grateful for the public notice. Without the obituary, I would never have known, or had the opportunity to send my condolences. Every sympathy card and kind word mean a great deal to remaining family members, even if from distant or unknown connections.

At my mother’s funeral ten years ago, a couple came through the receiving line I did not know. As it turned out, I did. Sort of. It was Gary, someone I knew in college and had briefly dated twenty-five years earlier. I had not seen or heard of him since, but he recognized my mother’s name and brought his wife to pay respect to my family. Much of that day was a blur, but I will always remember that on old friend came in support because he read the obituary in the newspaper. Sadly, a year later, an obituary appeared for his wife due to cancer. Of course, I went to her funeral as well.

Admittedly, I became aware of death, and lives cut short at a younger age than most. My father fell and suffered a brain injury at age forty-eight–the prime of his life. He would live another thirty years — but as a different personality, and permanently disabled. I was thirteen years old.

My brother died at age thirty-three thanks to a drunk driver. I was a senior in college. He left two children, my niece and nephew, eleven and nine respectively. They lost their father, my parents lost their firstborn and only son, and I lost my brother and main support system. At age twenty-one my sense of anything permanent was shattered.

We are born. We live our dash. We die. Most headstones summarize a life as simply [Year Born] — [Year Died]. All the living goes on in the dash. I am not ready for my dash to end yet.

Today, social media is effective for spreading word quickly of someone’s passing or of plans for a memorial service — to people you know. But not everyone is connected on social media or uses Facebook and Twitter to learn of breaking news. I have older friends whose online presence consists of the occasional email and who still fumble with the camera on their phone. My friend Tracey only uses Twitter, while my niece who is a military wife avoids all social media for security reasons. Ditto for my son in the military. Some teachers stay off social media to maintain privacy from nosey students. I gravitate mostly to Facebook, but Facebook controls who sees what, so posting news is no guarantee that everyone, or the right people will see it.

It is an interesting exercise to try to write your own obituary. It speaks to legacy — what I accomplished, who was important to me, and hopefully something fun. I haven’t tried this writing exercise, but I have resolved to “fill my dash” by keeping a bucket list of dreams to make into reality. When I reached age fifty it represented a mental day of reckoning for me. I’m halfway through this life if I manage to live to be a hundred. It is time to start making things happen and dreaming even bigger…..while I still can. I’ll leave the drafting of my own obituary for someone else.

My dear friend Nancy passed away at age ninety-two. When I wrote her obituary, I wanted to include her personality and fun spirit as a lasting memory, not that she sank into dementia for the last two years of her long life. Within the body of it I wrote: “Nancy loved a good game of tennis, a shared joke with friends and always a glass of wine. She was a fun, vivacious woman of strong faith, and an accomplished artist who sold many of her paintings.” I cried when I wrote it, that’s how I knew it was good.

Obituaries for anyone younger than me or near my age feel tragic and often are, yet they are still a reminder that life is short and not to be wasted. A Facebook meme was correct when it said: “Do not begrudge growing older. It is a privilege denied to many.”

Brief obituaries drafted by a funeral home leave me feeling very lonely for the deceased. Obituaries for those older than me, especially folks who have lived into their eighties and beyond are celebrations in many ways. They remind me life is not about the resume, or the reason for death, but about the battles won and the people you impacted in life and in death. I have come to admire people I never knew.

Have you read any obituaries lately? Reading about how other people lived their lives, may inspire you to look at yours in a different way.